12. If the arrangements of the household make it desir ble and proper that a young lady should assist at the ironing table, or in making bréad and píes, or in clear-starching her own muslins, or in making preserves, or in cleaning silver, or in doing any thing about the house necessary to be done, she should no more think of concealing it, or of being ashamed of it, than of combing her hair, or hemming a pocket-handkerchief.

13. This false shame about housewifery adds much to its unpleasantness; whereas a true view of the beauty and fitness of these feminine offices would invest them with a charm, and recommend them to the most refined.

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QUESTIONS. Which is the first example in this exercise illustrating the rule? Point out other examples, and tell how they should be read? Point out an example illustrating the exception to this rule. How should it be read? Why? Point out other examples of the same kind, and tell how they should be read. Point out some example, not marked, which illustrates the rule. Some which illustrate the exception. What practical lesson or duty is taught in this exercise?

SECTION III.

RULE 3. When words or clauses are contrasted, they take opposite inflections; the first member usually requires the rising inflection, and the latter, the falling. This order, however, is sometimes reversed.

EXAMPLES.

Words.

1. Spring and summer, autumn and winter, all have their pleas. ures and peculiar advantages.

2. Hópe and feàr, jóy and sàdness, prospérity and advèrsity, sickness and health, are incident to man.

Clauses.

1. Man often survives the privations of land, and the perils of the

QUESTIONS. -What inflections have words and clauses when contrasted? Give an xample of words. Of clauses.

sea; endures the intense cold of the north, and the scorching sun of the south.

2. Where there is no hópe, there is no endeavor.

3. Time destroys the speculations of mán, and confirms the judgments of nature.

Negation and Affirmation.

1. I did not love him, but I respected him.

2. Truth may lánguish, but it can never die.

3. Works, and not words, are the proofs of love.

4. Be not satisfied with the results and applicátions of knowledge, but search for its foùntains.

5. Man was created, not to revel in fólly and dissipation, but to be engaged in some useful employment.

Comparison.

1. Estimate persons more according to their goodness than their dréss.

2. Better be exalted by humility, than brought low by exaltátion. 3. In proportion as we know ourselves, we are enabled to know others.

4. No one is so well qualified to rúle, as he who knows how to obèy. This manner of reading the preceding examples of negation opposed to affirmation, and of comparison, is very generally believed to be correct; but we think that the sense would be better expressed by employing the circumflex instead of the rising inflection; and the preceding examples, together with those which occur in the following exercise, might, perhaps, more properly be classed with those in Section IX under Circumflex.

[The scholar may point out the examples of contrast in this exercise, name the class to which each one belongs, then give the contrasted words, and tell how they should be read.]

1. THE benevolence of the Gospel lies, in actions; the be

QUESTIONS. Give an example of negation opposed to affirmation. Of comparison. What is said in the remark in regard to reading examples of negation opposed to affirmation, and of comparison?

nevolence of our fictitious writers, in a kind of high-wrought delicacy of feeling and sentiment. The óne dissipates all its fervor in sighs and tears and idle aspirations; the òther re serves its strength for efforts and execution. The one regarde it as a luxurious enjoyment of the heart; the òther as a work and business for the hand.

2. The one sits in indolence, and broods in visionary rapture over its schemes of ideal philanthropy; the other steps abroad, and enlightens by its presence the dark and pestilential hovels of disease. The one wastes away in empty ejaculation; the other gives time and trouble to the work of beneficence, gives education to the orphan, provides clothes for the naked, and lays food on the table of the hungry.

3. The one is indolent and capricious, and often does mischief by the occasional overflowing of a whimsical and ill-directed charity; the òther is vigilant and discerning, and takes care lest his distributions be injudicious, and the effort of benevolence be misapplied.

4. The one is soothed with the luxury of feeling, and reclines in easy and indolent satisfaction; the òther shakes off the deceitful languor of contemplation and solitude, and delights in a scene of activity.

5. Remember that virtue in general is not to féel, but to dò; not merely to conceive a purpose, but to carry that purpose into execution; not merely to be overpowered by the impression of a sentiment, but to practice what it lòves, and to imitate what it admires.

6. To be benevolent in speculation, is often to be selfish in action and in reality. The vanity and the indolence of man delude him into a thousand inconsistencies. He professes to love the name and semblance of virtue, but the labor of selfdenial terrifies him from attempting it.

7. The emotions of kindness are delightful to his bosom, but then they are little better than a selfish indulgence; they terminate in his own enjoyment; they are a mere refinement of luxury. His eye melts over the picture of fictítious dis

tress, while not a tear is left for the actual starvation and misery with which he is surrounded.

8. Benevolence is a work and a labor. It often calls for the severest efforts of vigilance and industry,— a habit of action, not to be acquired in the school of fine sentiment, but in the walks of business, in the dark and dismal receptacles of misery, in the hospitals of disease, in the putrid lanes of great cities where poverty dwells in lank and ragged wretchedness, agonized with pain, faint with hunger, and shivering in a frail and unsheltered tenement.

9. You are not to conceive yourself a real lover of your species, and entitled to the praise or the reward of benevolence, because you weep over a fictitious representation of human misery.

10. A man may weep in the indolence of a studious and contemplative retirement; he may breathe all the tender aspirations of humanity; but what avails all this warm and diffusive benevolence if it is never exerted, if it never rises to execution, - if it never carries him to the accomplishment of a single benevolent purpose, if it shrinks from activity, and sickens at the pain of fatigue?

11. It is easy, indeed, to come forward with the cant and hypocrisy of fine sentiment, to have a heart trained to the emotions of benevolence, while the hand refuses the labors of discharging its offices, to weep for amusement, and still have nothing to spare for human suffering, but the tribute of an indolent and unmeaning sympathy.

QUESTIONS. - How should this exercise be studied? Which is the first example of contrast marked in it? To which class under the rule does it belong? Which are the contrasted words? How then should they be read? Which is the next example that is marked? &c., &c. Point out some examples which are not marked, and tell how they should be read, &c. What important truth is this exercise designed to enforce?

SECTION IV.

THE RISING INFLECTION.

RULE.4. The pause of suspension, denoting that the sense is unfinished, and also language expressing tender emotion, generally require the rising inflection.

NOTE 1. - The rising inflection, at the pause of suspension, and in language of tender emotion, is not usually so intensive as the rising slide of the direct question.

EXAMPLES.

Pause of Suspension.

1. When I consider the heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stárs, which thou hast ordained, what is man that thou art mindful of him?

2. To mourn over our ill fórtune, to envy others because they are more prosperous than ourselves, or to be constantly repining at our own condition, is a sure indication either of mental weakness or a want of proper energy of character.

3. The two commands, to "do unto others as you would they should do unto you," and to "love one another," imply that respect for our fellow-créatures, that regard for their happiness, that desire for their comfort, which prompt to kindness, benévolence, and forgetfulness of ourselves.

Tender Emotion.

1. They gazed mournfully upon his pallid féatures and his sunken cheek; and there were some who remembered the parting blessing of his hoary fáther, and the gushing tears that went coursing down his mother's face when her son's beloved voice breathed the parting farewell.

QUESTIONS.-What is the rising inflection? What is the rule for the pause of suspension when the sense is unfinished, and for language of tender emotion? What is said in the note? Read the first example illustrating the pause of suspension? Point out the words which require the rising inflection, &c., &c. Read the first example illustrating tender emotion. Point out the words on which the rising tally, tion occurs, &c.